Ups and Downs
by Choco
Summary: A series of ficlets in 500 words or less. Three: You wait, lost in a sea of silk, thoughts spinning downward in a lazy helix of misery, water, and blood. [LinkxZelda]
1. And Then It Passes

**Disclaimer:** I do not own Zelda.

Some of these ficlets/drabbles I've posted on my livejournal, some I haven't, but I thought I'd share them here. Let me know what you think if you want!

--

One: And Then It Passes 

You are her friend. The thought becomes your mantra – nurtured, picked-at, cherished – a feeble votive that quails before the threat of the promised prince. It becomes as durable as any shield, its toughness redoubled every time you meet her on her balcony of a night, every time you kneel before her dais in carefully affected obeisance and dare to look into her eyes. They are the same color as yours, yet are blue glass instead of liquid, reflecting both a ruler's serene confidence and your shared secret.

You piece together your future with her crooked stitches, weaving your fantasy from the baseless promises she whispers to you when you are completely alone. Yet in an instant, all is changed, your careful plans smashed from foundation to crenel by the force of reality. Holding the rubble heavy in your heart, you climb the steps to Hyrule Castle's highest tower where she has bidden you, the trek now seeming funereal.

There she meets you, as you knew she would, like a princess in a song – only her hair is undressed and her eyes red-lined, her appearance wholly different from that of the woman who walks through the castle's chaste flag-lined halls in daylight hours. "You are my friend," she reminds you, but all you can think of is pulling her close and pulling off her tabard and making her…

Then the floor comes up to meet you. The cobbles beneath your hands seem to blur as your eyes burn, and she is gone. It is as if nothing has ever happened.

Later, as you tremble with helplessness, the memories come in pieces. It seems half a dream, and why not? Perhaps it was a dream after all. You've sought to make her yours, all your life – putting the possibilities through their paces, knowing you must have missed something, anything, everything… The thought of her friendship is so fuzzy in your mind, all but torn to tatters as you witness her on the starboard side of the ship's deck. You're the only one who remembers now. You can't forget, as you watch her from the pier, can't allow yourself the relief. That secret must be reviled, guarded, repressed.

No one else can ever know. No liege lord, no close friend, no other woman whose heart is filled with thoughts of love. You all have your lies, you know; lies kindly meant, lies you come to believe, the lie that shapes an entire life. There's nothing wrong with you answering "no".


	2. Wedding Night

Two: Wedding Night

"Leave me my maidenhead." Over and over.

Link's eyes were blue cloth, yielding. "I won't take it."

Zelda rubbed her bare white legs and let steel bleed into her voice. "Then give me your sword."

Her hands shook as she took it, but in the half-light he surely couldn't tell. She held it, watching as the silhouette of Link's long lean body fell into bed. She held it, feeling rose petals between their sheets and feeling tingling below her belly. Frightened of marriage, she flung it between their bodies -- and curled up against the razor edge of Link's magic sword.


	3. In Longing

You wait (patient, still), lost in a sea of silk, thoughts spinning downward in a lazy helix of misery, water, and blood.

The red has run, spilled in abundance in lands far and fabled, by your word in your land, oozing sticky-sweet between your fingers, staining your hands.

Your hands. You look down at them, soft courtier's hands, pallid and trembling. Your body under his hands, shy and yet longing for his touch, a thousand years ago.

Never will you be subject to such passion again. Life, with all its hot intensity, is not yours to live, no more than it was his. Not for you a living death alone amongst lickspittles; instead, you've embraced the passionless state of certain death.

The thought begs at you, lapping coldly against your feet, tugging at your heart. Moonlight reflects off the surface of the lake, white and still. And, still, you wait.

You take a step into death (into the looking glass), shivering at the gelid water. You consider weight, the unbearable weight of living, the weight of your clothing pulling you down into the depths.

You consider yourself in death; picture yourself growing colder, and colder, until you are freezing beneath the water. You picture him in death (still in a steam, blood at face and throat). As the lake embraces your chest, you think of death, of a heaven where there exists none but you and him. This is your penance for allowing things to go so terribly wrong, exile in a watery prison. This is the razor rasping against your skin.

Then the ground disappears, and the lake comes up to slap you. You pinwheel beneath the waves like a Zora, desperate for absolution. The penance is not enough, you know now. Racing thoughts. Lungs filled with cold water.


End file.
